With the Notting Hill Carnival on the summer event horizon, and the weather (touch wood and crossing fingers) currently glorious, we are feeling rather overcome by a need for sultry, sassy scents which echo the Carnival spirit. So many ways we could go with this, but let’s plump for perfumes which are built around a ravishing rum note.
Now, slip on those spangled and feather-bedecked costumes and sashay your way to sniffing some of these…
An unexpected mix of piquant, spice-infused bergamot and plum with a ‘your-skin-but-so-much-better’, creamy leather dry-down, the warmth of the rum gets jiggy with a tingle of amber, then simmers for hours. The roller-ball bottle makes this especially useful for travelling (if you’re lucky enough) or touching up your scent, even if you’re shaking those hips in a Carnival parade!
An irresistible combination of rum, leather and tobacco is sprinkled with a sweet frisson of vanilla and a tingle of warming cinnamon – the effect quite spellbinding. The rum-enriched woodiness is both reassuring and playfully addictive while the rich spiciness instills confidence and daring. The overall impression? Those who follow your (feathered) fragrant trail will be left enchanted…
Initio Parfums Privé Side Effect£230 for 90ml eau de parfumharrods.com
‘Defined by an exhilarate rum distilled from sugarcane and aged in oak barrels’ the party really gets going when that silky smooth booziness is joined by the exotic glam of passionfruit. A vivaciously sparkling scent, the rum heart is additionally glammed up with gardenia, all resting on an amber wood base that melds with the heat of your skin, and making this a veritable cocktail party in a glass to samba with.
Paying homage to English gentleman and pirate Sir Francis Drake, Pirates’ Grand Reserve puts an intoxicating spin on an Atkinsons fragrance with accord of fine cask rum. Paired with cocoa bean and cedarwood, this one practically swaggers out with every spritz. Topped with a perfect posy of floral notes and rounded off with a deep, dark vanilla pod and patchouli, it’s never too heavy yet totally character-filled.
Atkinsons Pirates Grand Reserve£158 for 100ml eau de parfumatkinsons1779.com
The vibrant allure of an illicit after-party in a wood-panelled club is evoked here via a fizz of pink pepper, the brightness of neroli and lemon slinking to the rum-infused fun of the rich heart. There’s a shadowy coolness of vetiver oil from Java, a sense of refinement from the tobacco, and a sensually resinous vanilla base; but it’s the kind of night that will linger long in your memory, and your secret smiles…
Maison Margiela Replica Jazz Club£115 for 100ml eau de toilettemaisonmargiela.com
Now summer’s properly arrived, it’s festival season a go-go in the U.K. Each one has its own character, and there’s something for every taste – so we thought a perfect pairing would be to match the events with an accompanying fragrance that echoes the festival’s vibe.
With PULP, Blondie and the Manic Street Preachers as notable headline acts, there’s always been a laid-back cool to this festival, which presages many of the later music events following on. Choosing a scent with a suitably nonchalant chill to it is essential – trying too hard here will simply earn you a raised eyebrow of disapproval. This isn’t Coachella, darling, so ditch the heels and stick with a scent that rocks the vibe. Ostens Patchouli Heart No.II is elegant authenticity personified, incorporating breezy cypress, a tingle of ginger, and billowing violet with sheerly gorgeous woodiness.
The mother of all music festivals in the U.K. really, it’s become infamous for the likelihood of torrential rain at some point during the event, causing national newspapers to splash ‘mud-bath larks!’ type photos across their front pages. Originally the place for hippies to hang out and get groovy, the price of tickets nowadays ensures a more middle-class crowd. We suggest wearing a truly indie fragrance that evokes the far out spirit of 1960s, with this ‘iris on a bender’ scent, incorporating mushroom-y weirdness with floral crowns and absinthe for a truly trippy encounter.
Pulp are playing here, too (busy reunion tour, this year, with cult jewellery brand Tatty Devine even dedicating a range to their iconic songs), but for this ex goth, it’s all about the comeback of Siouxsie (of Banshees and, later, Creatures fame). As the queen of the dark side, I feel she, and all festival-goers who are moved by the music, would appreciate this creation, inspired by a Delphic oracle who enters ‘…a state of delirium by inhaling the vapours emitted by the sacred chasm beneath the temple.’ Spiritual smokiness swishes leather, amber, oud and ambergris in fabulous fashion.
This is a family-friendly gathering that always draws an artistic crowd, and yes there’s great music, but it’s more about a lifestyle celebration. With sustainability at the core of its ethos, and always keen to showcase independent companies, I think a great match would be with the booming British brand, Floral Street. Here, they’re inspired by Van Gough in a scent which vibrantly fizzes with fresh mandarin, Calabrian bergamot, and accords of vegan honey and Bellini cocktails. It settles to a smooth, nuanced warmth, with a scented sunset that feels timeless. Happiness in every spritz!
Womad (27 – 31st July) + Maya Njie Les Fleurs [try it as part of the stunning Maya Njie Discovery Set £34 for 5 pocket-friendly samples]
Founded in 1980 by the musician Peter Gabriel, this festival proudly celebrates world music, with the Womad Foundation now creating opportunities for cultural learning and sharing via artists all over the globe. A vibrant expression of togetherness, I think artist, perfumer and founder Maya Njie’s Les Fleurs (named for Minnie Ripperton’s 1970 song) perfectly incorporates music, here, as an inspirational medium. Rippling with bergamot’s brightness, a mellifluous magnolia and ripe fig, it’s an ‘unbound celebration of life, love and creation’ which brilliantly sums up the festival’s spirit.
At The Perfume Society we happen to fall firmly in the camp of perfume as an art form to be celebrated in its own right – a myriad of cultural and language crossovers in the areas of music and fragrance being particularly prevalent; with top, middle and base ‘notes’, perfumer’s ‘organs’ with their raw materials arrayed as the keys of an instrument, ‘accords’ and olfactory harmonies now standard references in scent.
Colours and painting, too, have their scent story to tell, with any number of world-famous noses experiencing the multiple layering of senses (people who ‘smell’ colours and musical notes, for example) known as synaesthesia – a subject we have previously explored in great depth within our Scented Letter magazine, indeed devoting an entire issue to the subject.
We’re blessed with a rich tapestry of diverse cultural events around the UK, and this summer promises a spectacular line-up of shows, festivals and arty comings-together with a little bit of something for everyone. As any ‘fume-head’s nose knows, one must always scent appropriately for the occasion (indeed, many of us pick our perfumes before we get dressed in the morning), and this set us wondering which perfumes would be best for culture vultures to wear at the panopoly of entertainment on offer in the months ahead….
Their musical cavortings now – incredibly – span 54 years, and this lively exhibition reflects on the vitality the Stones have brought to the music scene at large. Purporting to be ‘the most comprehensive insight into the group’ ever seen, it’s even got a sensory depth to plunge in to – should you wish… the scent supposedly evokes the ‘revolting digs’ the band lived in before becoming famous. A heady blend of Tandori chicken (Mick’s dish of choice, apparently) and fish & chips (the other members’ preference) along with the distinctive scent of unwashed socks and – well, all manner of things, one supposes – it’s likely even die-hard fans wouldn’t want to splash that all over. Maybe go for a stylish take on nostalgia with this old-school perfume oil, instead? Not the headlong dive into a hippie shop one might expect, it’s the resinously smoky birch tar that takes centre-stage, here; joined by vanilla on in the base (on the bass?) to further soothe animal insticts.
Le Labo Patchouli 24 £95 for 30ml perfume oil
Buy it at Liberty
Exoloring ‘the intimate relationship between underwear and fashion and its role in moulding the body to a fashionable ideal’, this major new exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum proves an eye-popping extravaganza of all things racy and lacey. From historical under-crackers that could raise more than titter, to some of the finest examples of scanties ever seen, we could think of nothing more appropriate than the designer who made it okay to show-off your underwear as outerwear – breathe in and plump for this latest, lighter version of JPG’s powdery orange blossom and musk-laden perfumed paean to the powerful curves a corset can bring.
Jean Paul Gaultier Classique Eau Fraiche £67 for 100ml eau de toilette
Buy it at The Perfume Shop
With a plethora of fascinating talks, banquets and ‘happenings’ lined up, including a Mini Beast Safari, Wine and Philosophy tastings, talks about trans-humanism, and cream teas in the orangery, there was already a lot to tempt us here. Add a perfumed book club over afternoon gin cocktails with our fragrant pal Odette Toilette, the rather lavish sounding promise of a ‘Scented Swim in Compton Verney’s stunning lake to the soundtrack of live classical piano’, AND one of Sarah McCartney’s perfume making workshops – we were sold. Of course you could eventually be weaing a scent you create yourself, but if you can’t bear to go bare, drench yourself with this British take on the Ambrée – a bright mix of citrus, jasmine, vanilla and cedarwood, it’s the scent of sun-kissed skin and happiness.
4160 Tuesdays Sunshine & Pancakes £90 for 100ml eau de parfum
Buy it at Roullier White
Founded in 1953 by Ottavio Missoni and his wife, Rosita, they actually began by knitting tracksuits for the Italian’s 1948 Olympic team – a rather incongruous start for what went on to become an iconic fashion house noted for their flair for colour, patterns and intricately woven fabrics; but all becomes clear in this wide-ranging exhibition when you discover Ottavio was also a former Olymic athlete. Featuring a stunning central pyramid of fashion mannequins, and with abstract artworks and home furnishings, it’s a feast for the eyes. What else to wear than the colourful new Missoni scent, designed to be the finishing touch to any stylish outfit it’s a distinctly Italian confident concotion of bergamot, pear, jasmine and tonka bean with a woody, soft musk trail.
Having graced many a student’s walls, don’t make do with the dog-eared blu-tacked posters – go and see the real red-heads and wanly pouting beauties in person. With over 120 major works by the masters including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, the significance of being exhibited in Liverpool is explored with the history of the city’s Autumn Exhibitions – a tradition that allowed this most overtly poetic and literary inspired movements to flourish. To complete the picture? A spellbindingly beautiful re-working of rose (perfumer Dominic Ropion using an unprecedented concentration, here) with broad brush strokes of refined patchouli, powdered bezoin, a sprinkle of cinnamon, smooth sandalwood and a glistening bunch of ripe berries fresh for the plucking.
Frederic Malle Portrait of a Lady £145 for 50ml eau de parfum
Buy it at Selfridges
Not merely vital as pollinators for the thousands of flowers and other naturally sourced materials the majority of fragrances still rely on, but for the survival of the human race itself, artist Kurt Jackson has long been obsessed with the litle buzzers. Ever since he first enrolled as a student of Zoology at the University of Oxford, Jackson has focused on bees, wasps and other pollinating insects as his main source of inspiration; and together with his various canvases, sculptures and prints, the university have loaned some of their extensive archival collection to support this exhibition, and highlight the true importance of these creatures we cannot take foregranted. It had to be honey-laden scent, of course, and bolstered by the darkly glimmering magnificence of oudh and a delightfully tempered, lightly musky dry down – this one has it in oodles.
Floris Honey Oud £160 for 100ml eau de parfum
Buy it at Floris
The day after legendary musician Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, the idea for the first Glastonbury Festival was born – the date of the (originally free) musical shin-dig was moved to coincide with the Summer Solstice, and 1971 saw an estimated crowd of 12,000 enjoy performances by Hawkwind, David Bowie, Joan Baez and Fairport Convention among others. It’s fair to say the numbers have increased somewhat since those days, but it’s still an absolute British institution on the live music scene, and with Adele, Muse, New Order, Coldplay and ZZ Top announced for 2016 so far, it’s set to be a record-breaking year. Another British institution is the almost inevitable torrential rain an ensuing mud-bath. We say, be ahead of the crowds and drench yourself in this before the heavens open, with cool ‘petrichor’ notes – that unique smell straight after a downpour – somehow captured in scent; it’s sure to refresh even under extreme circumstances.
Library of Fragrance Rain £15 for 30ml eau de toilette
Buy it at Boots
We bet you’ll be joining us in stocking up on safety pins and sprinkling your rubber trousers with talc for this year-long celebration of perhaps the most subversive – and influential – youth-led cultural movement in living history. Showcasing fashions, music and art that were all integral to making punk so iconic, and images of rainbow-coloured mohawked teens as synonymous with the image of London around the world as a red bus; it’s a joyfully exuberant yet important doccumentation of a genre that continues to break boundaries. With the BFI Southbank screening a selection of contemporary films starring, among others, the now Grand Dame of punk, Vivienne Westwood and Ari Up, lead singer of The Slits; it might be that you Boudoir-it-up with one of Westwood’s fragrance collection. However, for a scent that really embodies the shake it up and shock ’em nature of the scene; we tentatively suggest this adrenaline-infused fragrance. Never a house to pull back from the edge, it’s a blend of arousal-inspired accords on a bed of orris, opoponax, coconut and musk. Devisive as the spirit of punk itself, it’s a love or hate you’ll not forget in a hurry…
Etat Libre d’Orange Secretions Magnifiques £70 for 50ml eau de parfums
Buy it from Les Senteurs
